Country Lines (A DI Mitchell Yorkshire Crime Thriller Book 8)

by Oliver Davies

  “Exactly. If folks on methadone suddenly stop showing up, that’s a problem. Or they might still be getting their prescriptions but coming in with unexplained injuries, that kind of thing.”

  “Right, I get it.”

  “All the team is busy right now, and I thought we might both appreciate a trip out. Fancy going on a pharmacy road trip around York?”

  “That’s always been on my bucket list,” Stephen said, looking amused.

  “Glad to hear it because it’ll probably take the rest of the morning at least.”

  “But we can grab lunch in town?” he bargained.

  “If we make good time.”

  He fist-punched the air like the twenty-something rowdy rugby boy he was at heart, and I shook my head at him.

  “C’mon, foodie, you can plan what lunch you want on the way over there.”

  “Oh, I will be,” he said with a grin.

  We grabbed one of the few doughnuts remaining and made our way out to the car with sugar on our fingers. Stephen took his job of choosing somewhere for lunch seriously, and I had to smile as I saw him scrolling through menus on his phone.

  “Give Sam a text, will you? Let her know where we are.”

  “She’ll probably be too busy,” Stephen said, sounding genuinely disappointed. I was forever glad that my girlfriend and my best mate seemed to have become friends in their own right because I would’ve hated it if things had been awkward between them.

  “Probably. And she’ll be mad we’re having a nice lunch whilst she has to eat a sandwich on her own.”

  “We’ll just have to bring her back a dessert, then, eh?” Stephen said.

  “That’s what you do to cheer Annie up?” I teased.

  Stephen grinned. “Works every time, mate. She likes a good cheesecake best.”

  “Sam’s favourite is brownies.”

  “Brownies it is.”

  We had work to do before we could dive into lunch, though, and I pulled our car up outside the first pharmacy, a Boots. I’d mapped out a quick route on the SatNav that would take us to the pharmacies nearest to the railway station first. We still didn't know where Jackson’s home base was, so I couldn’t work outwards from there. After that, the railway seemed a safe bet since the drugs would need to be transported out of York.

  “DCI Mitchell and DI Huxley,” I said shortly to the pharmacist behind the desk, flashing my badge. “Could we talk privately?”

  I wasn’t going to ask about people’s private medical records out in the main shop, where anyone could eavesdrop and blab their mouth in places we wouldn’t want them to.

  The pharmacist obligingly ushered us towards a back room, which was a tight fit for three adults, and looked at us expectantly.

  “We’re looking into a drug operation we believe is taking place in York,” I told her. “We need to know whether you’ve had any strange behaviour from your customers recently.”

  I explained the warning signs, and she listened intently with a slight frown between her manicured brows.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know of anything like that happening recently. I’ll check with my colleagues, though, to be sure.”

  She came back to us to say that none of the pharmacy staff had noticed anything of the like and that she’d checked the system for missed methadone prescriptions, and they all seemed to be in order. We thanked her for looking and headed out.

  “One down, ten million to go,” Stephen sighed.

  “So ruddy dramatic.”

  It was tedious work, though necessary, and we moved down our list of pharmacies. Many of them had one or two people who’d missed their methadone prescription recently, but the staff had informed us that it wasn’t unusual. I’d jotted down the names anyway, just in case, but it wasn’t looking hopeful. We continued trying regardless as the morning wore on and Stephen’s stomach started rumbling.

  “Oh, yeah, wait a sec,” a young pharmacist told us, putting up a finger before she disappeared out of the back room without another word. Stephen and I shared a shrug and waited for her to return.

  When she did come back in, she was accompanied by a matronly woman whose name badge read ‘Ellie’.

  “You’re asking about Victor Roberts?” she asked. She had piercing blue eyes and raised her eyebrows at us.

  “Uh,” I looked at the younger pharmacist in confusion. Her name tag read ‘Marcie’.

  “Ellie said that a man called Victor Roberts matched your description, detective,” the peppy woman said, looking pleased to be of help. I gave her a grateful nod.

  “That’s excellent. What can you tell us about him?” I said, addressing the last part to Ellie.

  “He’s not been coming by for too long, a month at most, I’d say. Tall bloke, skinny like they usually are, unwashed hair.” She sniffed.

  “And he’s missed his methadone prescription?”

  “That, and he came in looking like a ruffian the week before. I remember because I tried to offer him some assistance, and he rewarded my concern with verbal abuse. On top of that, he dragged mud all over the floor with his boots.”

  “What made you concerned for him? He was injured?”

  She hummed in agreement. “Black eye, bloody nose. A right mess.”

  “Had he come in looking like before? Or missed his prescription in the past?”

  “I couldn’t say. We see a lot of people here.” She glanced out of the door towards the main shop. “Excuse me, officers, there’s a queue.”

  She left, and I stepped aside to let her go, though I would’ve liked to question her further.

  “Did you see this bloke?” Stephen asked the younger woman, Marcie.

  “Afraid I didn’t, sorry.”

  “We’ll need his contact information, please. Phone number, address, that kind of thing. And if you can find out when he did last pick up his prescription, I’d appreciate it.”

  “Sure, I’ll do that,” she said, giving a bob of the head.

  She’d carefully styled her brown hair into curls, and I couldn’t imagine taking the time to do all of that in the morning, plus make-up. I’d seen how long it took Sam to do her hair for a night out, and it seemed to take long enough that I could go for a run by the time she was finished.

  “You think this one’s a likely candidate?” Stephen leaned in to ask once Marcie had stepped away.

  “Possibly. We’re reasonably close to Max’s house here, so maybe Jackson lives nearby. It could just be a coincidence, the injuries plus the missed prescription, but it’s worth checking.”

  Stephen nodded his agreement, and we fell into silence as we waited. Marcie didn’t take long, coming back with a sheet of paper with handwriting on it.

  “Mr Roberts last came in for his prescription two weeks ago, detective,” she told me. “And there’s his address and things.”

  I took it in a glance. “Thanks, this is perfect. Did you happen to see whether this man often missed his prescription in the past?”

  “Well, Ellie was right about him not having been coming in for long, but I didn’t see any missed prescriptions on the system.”

  “We really appreciate the help, Marcie. Thanks.”

  She smiled widely. “No problem.”

  We headed out of the pharmacy and back towards the car. The heavy clouds that’d been threatening rain as early as my run this morning finally delivered, dumping down a heavy shower that left Stephen and me hurrying for the car.

  “Blimey, you never get any warning.”

  I chuckled. “What would you like? A notice over the heavenly tannoy that it's about to be raining cats and dogs?”

  “I mean, it would be nice,” he said, giving a short laugh.

  “So, what did you think?” I asked, switching back to work. “Is it worth checking out this bloke, Roberts, or shall we finish going around the pharmacies first?”

  “In this weather?” Stephen complained. “C’mon, Mitch, it’s the perfect time for lunch.”

  “Alright, alright.�
�

  We took a brief break, heading over to the Spark, which was a group of street food and indie businesses crammed inventively into a bunch of shipping containers.

  “You been here before? The wife recommended it,” Stephen said.

  “Nope, but it looks good.”

  We ended up tucking into loaded fries and burgers from one of the food outlets, sitting out on one of the benches inside and listening to the rain come tapping down on the metallic roof.

  “I think I want to check in on this Victor Roberts, see whether he could be caught up in something. Even if he’s not involved with the same operation that Max and Jackson were, he might still be into something else.”

  “Mm, just what we need; more problems.”

  “I thought I was meant to be the pessimistic one.”

  “You are mostly,” Stephen sent me a smirk, and I shoved him lightly.

  We dumped our food boxes and headed over to Roberts’ place. His address led us to another terrace house, this time in Tang Hall. The thin grass on the lawn outside was long enough to look scruffy but not long enough that it hadn’t been mowed relatively recently, say in the last month or so. A newspaper, one of the free ones which contained more adverts than news, was lodged in the letterbox like a limp cigarette, damp from the recent rain. Judging by the state of it, it had been out longer than just today.

  “Think he’s gone on holiday without telling anyone?” Stephen said, his tone not entirely serious. If Roberts’ post was sticking out of his letterbox only because he was on holiday, that’d be the best outcome.

  “Maybe.”

  I rapped on the door with the aged knocker, brushing flakes of rust off my fingers as I stepped back, so I was shoulder-to-shoulder with Stephen. There was no answer, and I tried again, clenching my jaw in annoyance.

  “Another no-show,” I muttered.

  Stephen tried the knocker a third time whilst I did what he’d done at Jackson’s mother’s place, which was looking into the windows. The curtains were mostly drawn, another sign that the house either wasn’t occupied or that the homeowner didn’t give a damn about things like fetching the post or getting any daylight. The windows to the right of the door were completely covered, but the left-hand ones were open a crack, letting me see into a murky sitting room.

  “Anything?” Stephen called.

  I’d been about to reply in the negative, but immediately after his call, I spotted movement inside the dull room. Down on the floor by the sofa, what I’d thought was a shadow had shifted, and it was too big to be a cat.

  I knocked loudly on the glass window, catching Stephen’s startled jump in my peripheral vision. The shadow, or figure even, moved again, and I thought I heard a faint groan.

  “We’re breaking in under section seventeen,” I informed Stephen sharply. “We might need an ambulance but hold off for now, I think someone’s in there, but it’s too dark to be sure.”

  Stephen fiddled around with his belt while I searched for the best way in, and I wasn’t expecting him to offer me a torch.

  “Oh. Didn’t know you had that on you,” I said before stepping back over to the window and clicking the light on. It was a small torch, but the LED beam was surprisingly powerful, cutting through the gloom of the dim room.

  The beam swept over the shape on the floor, and I pressed my nose to the window as I tried to see better. My breathing fogged up the glass when I released a noise of shock. There was a hand and arm lying on the carpet, sticking out from behind the back of a sofa, and it twitched as I focused the torch on it.

  “See anything?”

  “Aye, call that ambulance,” I instructed, flicking the torch off. “There’s someone in there, and they need help.”

  Eight

  Stephen got on the phone to the ambulance whilst I tried to figure out the best way into the house. There was no way to get round the back, and the door looked worryingly solid, despite the rundown look of the rest of the house. Breaking one of the front windows was an option, but I was likely to get cut up with glass if I tried to climb through there. The door it was.

  Exterior doors were far harder to break down than interior doors, and when the door opened outwards, it was nigh on impossible. Rather than try, wasting time and likely giving myself an injury, I hurried back to our car and crossed my fingers that there’d be the piece of kit in the car that I needed. We didn’t carry around battering rams on the off-chance we might need them, for obvious reasons, but we were given Halligan bars.

  “Bingo,” I muttered, grabbing the weighty yellow tool and jogging back to the door.

  The bar acted as a lever, digging in around the door to break it open. I jammed it into place and waved Stephen over to give me a hand. With a grunt and a hearty shove, the lock mechanism audibly snapped, and the door jerked open towards us.

  “You called the station yet?” I asked Stephen as we stepped cautiously into the house, both of us slightly out of breath from our efforts.

  “Yeah, I put it out on the radio. Ambulance is eight minutes out.”

  “Got it.”

  We progressed inside, wary despite, or perhaps because of, the eerie quiet of the house. There was a musty, sour smell in the air, a mixture of a lack of ventilation and unwashed bodies, and there was a layer of dust over almost everything. A wheeze broke the quiet, and I quickened my step, slipping into the sitting room. I swore quietly.

  “Careful, he’s behind the door,” I told Stephen, holding the door partially shut so he wouldn’t hit the bloke on the floor with it. He moved through the gap to join me inside.

  I dropped down to kneel beside the prone man and tried to remember everything we’d learnt in basic first aid training. I remembered a second later that Stephen had taken the course more recently than I had, meaning I was more than happy to hang back while he took the lead.

  “What was his name again?” he muttered as he shifted the barely conscious man into the recovery position and checked his breathing. There was a rind of dried, white foam around the man’s too pale lips.

  “Victor,” I remembered aloud. “Victor Roberts.”

  “Victor, can you hear me?” Stephen asked clearly. “He’s breathing at least,” he told me in an aside.

  Victor looked to be under thirty, though it was difficult to tell with the lines of hard-living etched into his skin, deep furrows on his brow and cheeks. He sported a scraggly goatee that looked to be grown more from negligence than design, and there was a streak of grey hair above his ear.

  I heard the wail of ambulance sirens and stood up. “I’ll fetch the paramedics.”

  I felt like I could breathe fully again once the ambulance crew entered the house and took over Victor’s care. They’d moved him carefully away from the door, so they could rush him out to the ambulance on a stretcher, an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth. Stephen and I watched him go, both of us grim-faced. I took another deep breath of the mild air, which smelled faintly of flowers, from a garden a short way down the street. I hadn’t noticed it when we were focused on Victor’s house and then on breaking inside, but I did now.

  I reached to rest a hand on Stephen’s shoulder. “Case or no, we helped him today.”

  “We sure did,” he agreed with a slightly strained smile. “Let’s hope he pulls through at the hospital.”

  “Aye, I don’t know how long he’d been lying there for, but…” I trailed off, unsure how to finish.

  “We did our best,” Stephen assured me.

  “Aye. Time for a coffee, maybe?”

  “Hell no. I reckon my heart would about explode if I had any caffeine right now.” He pressed his hand to his chest, which was probably thudding just as fast as mine was a moment ago.

  “A sugary tea and some cake, then?” I said with a faint smile.

  “Perfect.”

  I stowed the Halligan bar back in the boot, silently thanking whoever had stowed it in there, and we headed out. I drove us over to a drive-through, since Stephen’s driving tended to be
even more nerve-wracking when he was hyped up on adrenaline.

  We were pulled up on the side of a quiet road, enjoying our short break, when my phone started ringing.

  “Christ, is ten minutes of peace too much to ask for?” I grumbled, brushing flapjack crumbs off my fingers before I fished around for my phone.

  “DCI Mitchell?” a young voice asked.

  “Speaking.”

  “It’s DC Cole. We’ve got that CCTV footage you asked for, sir.”

  “Great,” I said, a little flatly. It was good news, but I really had been hoping for a short breather. “We’ll be right over. Good work.”

  “Thanks, sir.”

  “Oh, another thing,” I said before he could hang up. “I need one of you to give York hospital a call. Ask about a Victor Roberts, see what’s happening with him.”

  “Will do, sir.”

  “Good lad,” I said before ending the call.

  “We’re off then?” Stephen said, wiping his fingers on a napkin. He had a bacon sandwich, and the whole car smelled like it now. I ran down the window and turned the car key, clipping my seatbelt back in.

  “Yep. Good news about the CCTV, apparently.”

  “No rest for the wicked, eh?” Stephen said, a slight smile on his lips.

  “Guess not.” I exhaled a laugh.

  Driving back to Hewford didn’t take long, though I had plenty of time to envision exactly what had just happened with Victor. The twitch of his pale fingers in the torch beam from the window, the flickering of his eyelids as he seemed to slide in and out of consciousness, the dried froth around his mouth and in his facial hair. Worst had been the thin gasp of his breathing, wet and struggling before Stephen had rolled him on his side.

  The flapjack felt heavy in my stomach by the time I parked up at Hewford, and I regretted eating it. I’d decided I deserved the treat after the upsetting time of it we had, but I ought to have gone for something lighter on my stomach, which was twisting itself into knots the more I dwelled on it. I hoped very much that we’d arrived in time to save Victor, but it was never a sure thing with these things. The circumstances obviously pointed towards a drug overdose, and I could picture Victor’s features turning the same deathly pale as Jackson’s had been less than a week ago. Somehow, finding someone already dead was significantly easier to cope with for me than coming across someone who was caught painfully between dead and alive and who might go either way. There was so much room for self-blame there if Victor didn’t make it, even though, rationally, I knew we’d done all we could with the information we had available to us.